Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2

by John Wilson

What wild schemes does not love imagine, and in the face of very impossibility achieve! "I will take Lucy to myself, if it should be in place of all the world. I will myself shed light over her being, till in a new spring it shall be adorned with living flowers that fade not away, perennial and self-renewed. In a few years the bright docile creature will have the soul of a very angel—and then, before God and at His holy altar, mine shall she become for ever—here and hereafter—in this paradise of earth, and, if more celestial be, in the paradise of heaven."

Thus two summers and two winters wheeled away into the past; and in the change, imperceptible from day to day, but glorious at last, wrought on Lucy's nature by communication with one so prodigally endowed, scarcely could her parents believe it was their same child, except that she was dutiful as before, as affectionate, and as fond of all the familiar objects, dead or living, round and about her birthplace. She had now grown to woman's stature—tall, though she scarcely seemed so except when among her playmates; and in her maturing loveliness, fulfilling, and far more than fulfilling, the fair promise of her childhood. Never once had the young stranger—stranger no more—spoken to daughter, father, or mother, of his love. Indeed, for all that he felt towards Lucy there must have been some other word than love. Tenderness, which was almost pity—an affection that was often sad—wonder at her surpassing beauty, nor less at her unconsciousness of its power—admiration of her spiritual qualities, that ever rose up to meet instruction as if already formed—and that heart-throbbing that stirs the blood of youth when the innocent eyes it loves are beaming in the twilight through smiles or through tears,—these, and a thousand other feelings, and above all, the creative faculty of a poet's soul, now constituted his very being when Lucy was in presence, nor forsook him when he was alone among the mountains.

At last it was known through the country that Mr Howard—the stranger, the scholar, the poet, the elegant gentleman, of whom nobody knew much, but whom everybody loved, and whose father must at the least have been a lord, was going—in a year or less—to marry the daughter of Allan Fleming—Lucy of the Fold. O, grief and shame to the parents—if still living—of the noble Boy! O, sorrow for himself when his passion dies—when the dream is dissolved—and when, in place of the angel of light who now moves before him, he sees only a child of earth, lowly born, and long rudely bred—a being only fair as many others are fair, sister in her simplicity to maidens no less pleasing than she, and partaking of many weaknesses, frailties, and faults now unknown to herself in her happiness, and to him in his love! Was there no one to rescue them from such a fate—from a few months of imaginary bliss, and from many years of real bale? How could such a man as Allan Fleming be so infatuated as sell his child to fickle youth, who would soon desert her broken-hearted? Yet kind thoughts, wishes, hopes, and beliefs prevailed; nor were there wanting stories of the olden time, of low-born maidens married to youths of high estate, and raised from hut to hall, becoming mothers of a lordly line of sons, that were counsellors to Kings and Princes.

In Spring, Mr Howard went away for a few months—it was said to the great city—and on his return at midsummer, Lucy was to be his bride. They parted with a few peaceful tears, and though absent were still together. And now a letter came, saying that before another Sabbath he would be at the Fold. A few fields in Easdale, long mortgaged beyond their fee-simple by the hard-working statesman from whom they reluctantly were passing away, had meanwhile been purchased by Mr Howard, and in that cottage they were to abide, till they had built for themselves a house a little further up the side of the sylvan hill, below the shadow of Helm-crag. Lucy saw the Sabbath of his return and its golden sun, but it was in her mind's eye only; for ere it was to descend behind the hills, she was not to be among the number of living things.

Up Forest-Ullswater the youth had come by the light of the setting sun; and as he crossed the mountains to Grassmere by the majestic pass of the Hawse, still as every new star arose in heaven, with it arose as lustrous a new emotion from the bosom of his betrothed. The midnight hour had been fixed for his return to the Fold; and as he reached the cliffs above White-moss, according to agreement a light was burning in the low window, the very planet of love. It seemed to shed a bright serenity over all the vale, and the moon-glittering waters of Rydal-mere were as an image of life, pure, lonely, undisturbed, and at the pensive hour how profound! "Blessing and praise be to the gracious God! who framed my spirit so to delight in His beautiful and glorious creation—blessing and praise to the Holy One, for the boon of my Lucy's innocent and religious love!" Prayers crowded fast into his soul, and tears of joy fell from his eyes, as he stood at the threshold, almost afraid, in the trembling of life-deep affection, to meet her first embrace.

In the silence, sobs and sighs, and one or two long deep groans! Then in another moment, he saw, through the open door of the room where Lucy used to sleep, several figures moving to and fro in the light, and one figure upon its knees—who else could it be but her father! Unnoticed he became one of the pale-faced company—and there he beheld her on her bed, mute and motionless, her face covered with a deplorable beauty—eyes closed, and her hands clasped upon her breast! "Dead, dead, dead!" muttered in his ringing ears a voice from the tombs, and he fell down in the midst of them with great violence upon the floor.

Encircled with arms that lay round him softer and silkier far than flower-wreaths on the neck of a child who has laid him down from play, was he when he awoke from that fit—lying even on his own maiden's bed, and within her very bosom, that beat yet, although soon about to beat no more. At that blest awakening moment, he might have thought he saw the first glimpse of light of the morning after his marriage-day; for her face was turned towards his breast, and with her faint breathings he felt the touch of tears. Not tears alone now bedimmed those eyes, for tears he could have kissed away; but the blue lids were heavy with something that was not slumber—the orbs themselves were scarcely visible—and her voice—it was gone, to be heard never again, till in the choir of white-robed spirits that sing at the right hand of God.

Yet no one doubted that she knew him—him who had dropt down, like a superior being, from another sphere, on the innocence of her simple childhood—had taught her to know so much of her own soul—to love her parents with a profounder and more holy love—to see, in characters more divine, Heaven's promises of forgiveness to every contrite heart—and a life of perfect blessedness beyond death and the grave. A smile that shone over her face the moment that she had been brought to know that he had come at last, and was nigh at hand—and that never left it while her bosom moved—no—not for all the three days and nights that he continued to sit beside the corpse, when father and mother were forgetting their cares in sleep—that smile told all who stood around, watching her departure, neighbour, friend, priest, parent, and him the suddenly distracted and desolate, that in the very moment of expiration she knew him well, and was recommending him and his afflictions to the pity of One who died to save sinners.

Three days and three nights, we have said, did he sit beside her who so soon was to have been his bride; and come or go who would into the room, he saw them not—his sight was fixed on the winding-sheet, eyeing it, without a single tear, from feet to forehead, and sometimes looking up to heaven. As men forgotten in dungeons have lived miserably long without food, so did he—and so he would have done, on and on to the most far-off funeral day. From that one chair, close to the bedside, he never rose. Night after night, when all the vale was hushed, he never slept. Through one of the midnights there had been a great thunderstorm, the lightning smiting a cliff close to the cottage; but it seemed that he heard it not—and during the floods of next day, to him the roaring vale was silent. On the morning of the funeral, the old people—for now they seemed to be old—wept to see him sitting still beside their dead child; for each of the few remaining hours had now its own sad office, and a man had come to nail down the coffin. Three black specks suddenly alighted on the face of the corpse—and then off—and on—and away—and returning—was heard the buzzing of large flies, attracted by beauty in its corruption. "Ha—ha!" starting up, he cried in horror—"What birds of prey are these, whom Satan has sent to devour the corpse?" He became stricken with a sort of palsy—and, being led out to the open air, was laid down, seemingly as dead as her within, on the green daisied turf, where, beneath the shadow of the sycamore, they had so often sat, building up beautiful visions of a long blissful life.

The company assembled—but not before his eyes—the bier was lifted up and moved away down the sylvan slope, and away round the head of the Lake, and over the wooden bridge, accompanied, here and there, as it passed the wayside houses on the road to Grassmere, by the sound of psalms—but he saw—he heard not;—when the last sound of the spade rebounded from the smooth arch of the grave, he was not by—but all the while he was lying where they left him, with one or two pitying dalesmen at his head and feet. When he awoke again and rose up, the cottage of the Fold was as if she had never been born—for she had vanished for ever and aye, and her sixteen years' smiling life was all extinguished in the dust.